Arraya Insights

January 21, 2016 by Arraya Insights

Time Inc. had a funny problem recently, at least funny from the outside. Someone innocently enough sent an email with a question about their benefits to an open distribution list for Health and Wellness instead of to HR. From there, people started to reply all, wondering why they were getting that email and not thinking that they are probably emailing others that are thinking the same thing. Hilarity ensued!

This is obviously a user education issue, but IT can help. I’ve been at a company that has had this type of issue and Microsoft solutions had the answers.

The first thing for an IT administrator to know is that all distribution lists in Outlook have security controls around who can send to them. There are always reasons to create massive lists, but leaving them open is a mistake. If you are big enough to have a Corporate Communications group or even a CXO level, these people should be allowed to send to these lists. If not, think about who needs access and designate those people to handle communications. It will save a lot of headaches.

If you are behind the ball, as Time Inc. was, you can stop it by restricting the list immediately and leaving it restricted for a few days. You can also get creative with the mail transport rules. For example, you can create a rule that states:

If the subject or body of the message contains “HR Question” AND
The recipient address includes HealthandWellness@someaddress.com, THEN
Block the message (delete it without notifying anyone)

Seems pretty simple, right? Just a couple of clicks and you will stop the storm of email replies.

Now that things have gotten under control again, you probably don’t want those emails lingering out there anymore. You need to get rid of them all, but they are scattered across multiple mailboxes. With Office 365, you can use the Compliance Search feature to search for and subsequently remove the messages.

The steps to do this are straightforward and available on TechNet. Basically, you create a Compliance Search to find the message, then you delete the message.

Now that the storm is over, you need to prevent this from happening again. Think about the content of the message. Maybe email isn’t the best mechanism to ask such a question. Office 365 has a great tool to ask point in time questions and get an answer – Yammer!

This entire situation could have been avoided by moving conversations, which are slow and cumbersome in email, to a social format. If Time Inc. had Yammer and created an HR portal to ask questions, the employee could have just logged on and asked the question. Either someone designated to watch the Yammer Group or even anyone in HR could have answered. Yammer does require a cultural shift in thinking about content placement and collaboration, but this example proves how useful the technology can be.

If you find yourself in the middle of a Reply-All-pocalypse, hopefully your IT administrators are notified and action can be taken quickly. I was an email admin for a number of years and found myself in this situation. Even before Office 365, there were tools in Exchange to help deal with this quickly and effectively. Just breathe, let management know what you’re doing and get it over with as fast as possible, so that you can start focusing on more effective ways to collaborate!

January 20, 2016 by Arraya Insights

Picture this: An end user manages to overlook the red flags and clicks on an email attachment that actually contains malware. So what happens next? According to industry averages, it can take IT roughly 100-200 days to detect and solve the subsequent problems. That’s more than enough time for the malware to inflict some significant damage. IT knows this and it’s done its best to speed up its response capabilities. As IT has gotten faster, so have threats. The end result is a security footrace with a company’s data waiting at the finish line.

In today’s business landscape, near-instantaneous response is required to make sure private data doesn’t fall into the hands of cyber criminals. Beyond that immediate response, security must be prepared to evolve right along with malware and other threats. The bad guys aren’t standing still and so neither can the people (and solutions) on the other side of the aisle.

This is exactly what Rapid Threat Containment from Cisco brings to the table. This solution features Cisco FireSIGHT Management Center (FMC) and Identity Services Engine (ISE). It unifies those two solutions to provide a next-level security solution capable of standing up to next-level threats. Organizations leveraging Rapid Threat Containment also gain:

The peace of mind that comes from automatic malware detection and containment of compromised endpoints
Threat intelligence that is continually updated to keep pace with the always-changing methodologies of cyber criminals
Increased visibility into security risks, allowing for more efficient and effective responses from IT
Expanded networking capabilities thanks to its easy integration with already-deployed Cisco solutions and devices

Securing IT against end user gaffes

Going back to that original example of the end user and the malicious email attachment, if that user’s employer had Rapid Threat Containment deployed, the situation would have played out differently. Instead of the organization being left open to a potentially lengthy and costly intrusion, the following would take place:

The downloaded file would be scanned by Cisco sensors and that data would be passed along to FMC.
FMC would identify the suspicious file and alert ISE about the issue. ISE would, in turn, assign new access policies to the user and the device reflecting the suspicious activity.
This new policy would inform network enforcers to automatically begin restricting the user and the device’s access.
The suspect device would be quarantined and access denied until the necessary remediation and mitigation procedures could be taken.

Gain a leg up on cyber crooks with Rapid Threat Containment

IT teams are being pushed to their limits defending their organizations against sophisticated cyber criminals. Not only are attack methods advancing, but the attack surface itself is growing. As more devices gain connectivity through Internet of Things technology, it gives IT more doors to lock and attackers more ways in. Rapid Threat Containment can help seal those doors.

Arraya Solutions’ Cisco team has decades of experience supporting industry-leading technology. It stands ready to help businesses determine whether Rapid Threat Containment is the correct fit for them and aid in the deployment and fine-tuning of the solution.

Want to learn more about Rapid Threat Detection or the other ways Arraya can help minimize IT headaches? Visit: http://www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. Or, we can be contacted directly through our Twitter account, @ArrayaSolutions. Be sure to click the “Follow” button to be among the first to know about all of our latest blogs, events, and special offers.

January 19, 2016 by Arraya Insights

Heads up: Businesses located in Pennsylvania that utilize a multiline telephone system (MLTS) will want to take note of a pair of recent changes to the state’s 9-1-1 laws. The bill – which had been designated as HB 911 for obvious reasons – was signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf late this past June. However, these changes may have been missed by some as they weren’t the bill’s main focus.

Here’s a closer look at those changes, what they mean, and how Arraya can help.

Change #1: Updates to ELIN/ERL requirements for select businesses

The first update involves a pair of acronyms that play a vital role ensuring quick and efficient response during an emergency. The first is Emergency Location Identification Number (ELIN) – or the number which allows dispatchers to call a person back directly should a call to 9-1-1 get disconnected and the other is Emergency Response Location (ERL), i.e., the identifier of the physical area in which a telephone extension exists.

According to section 5311.16 of the new law, an ELIN must lead a dispatcher to one of two things:

an ERL providing at least the building and floor from which a caller reached out
a private 9-1-1 answering endpoint which can be used to direct response

There are exceptions to this law. Single-level workspaces covering less than 7,000 square feet and which are located on a single property are not required to provide more than one ERL. The same goes for key telephone systems.

Change #2: Dialing instruction updates

Obviously time is of the essence if 9-1-1 is being dialed, and that need for urgency is reflected in the second change. Section 5311.22 of the new law is designed to ensure callers can get in touch with emergency responders right away. To make sure they can, the law requires that MLTSs allow callers to dial 9-1-1 directly, without having to dial any other numbers or be intercepted by switchboard operators, attendants etc. This applies to all MLTSs installed after this section went into effect.

Complying with 9-1-1 updates

These changes represent best practices for corporate communication systems. They’re critical measures which can be taken to prevent tragedies, heartache, and lawsuits. After all, consider the horror stories that could occur as a result of noncompliance. For example, without the correct ERL, emergency personnel could go to the wrong suite in a divided building, be sent away, only to have to return to the site of the actual crisis. All the while, precious seconds would be ticking off the clock as the mix-up was sorted out.

There’s no silver bullet that can bring an organization into compliance. Corporate communication systems are unique, and each one will need to be evaluated based on its own merits. However, Arraya’s team of communication and collaboration experts can walk customers through the diagnostic process. Then, they can help make the necessary configuration changes to bring systems up to code.

Our team can help ensure continued compliance by performing annual or semi-annual 9-1-1 audits for customers. We’ll set up calls with carriers or with local dispatchers to check that information is being transmitted correctly and that everything is in working order. These test scenarios serve essentially the same function as a test of disaster recovery capabilities. They give organizations confidence that their system will respond correctly should it ever be needed.

If you’d like to learn more about the new 9-1-1 legislation, how it could impact your business, or how we can help, reach out to us at www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us. We can also be reached directly through our Twitter account, @ArrayaSolutions. While there, follow us to stay updated on our latest blog posts, company events, and special offers.

January 14, 2016 by Arraya Insights

For years cloud-based backup solutions were dogged by concerns about availability, cost, and, perhaps the biggest of all, entrusting company data to an outside partner. However, the tide has turned. Support for more-traditional, onsite backup and recovery options has eroded according to data collected by Dimensional Research. In fact, 89% of companies surveyed said they now see value in leveraging the cloud for their recovery and backup needs.

What initiated that? For many of the companies surveyed, it came down to giving cloud-based backups a chance. Seeing the benefits for themselves helped to dispel many of their long-held myths about cloud-based backup solutions. Let’s take a closer look at three of those myths – and the reality a partner like Arraya can help companies achieve.

Myth #1: Cloud-based backup is too expensive.

Reality: Switching to a cloud-based backup solution can help reduce IT expenses, a fact that’s supported by Dimensional’s findings. In its study, 36% said they experienced an overall cost reduction by making the change. With traditional DR and backup arrangements, companies must pay upfront for the hardware, then they need to pay to power and cool that hardware. There are also costs such as employee training to consider and there’s the risk of a company buying more storage space then it will ultimately need. That’s not the case with a cloud-based backup provider such as Arraya, where price is based on consumption. This ensures companies never pay for more than they need. In addition, all of those associated costs (power, cooling, training, etc.) are all taken off the company’s plate.

Myth #2: Onsite backups will cover me in a worst case scenario.

Reality: In a survey conducted by the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council (DRPC), 40% of organizations admitted their existing DR plan didn’t meet expectations when it was needed during a worst case scenario. Organizations who only back-up onsite could easily find themselves in this boat. In the event that the worst should happen, it makes sense to keep eggs, or in this case data copies, in multiple baskets. For example, say a disgruntled employee wants to cause some headaches for IT. It’s far easier for him or her to damage backups stored onsite than those in the cloud. Or, say there’s an outage covering an entire area. With cloud-based backups, data will safely be stored off site, away from trouble. It will be available and up-to-date when it’s needed.

Myth #3: When it comes to backup and DR, it’s OK to “set it and forget it.”

Reality: According to the DRPC study:

⇒ One-third of all organizations fully test their DR plans only once or twice a year

⇒ Nearly one in four never test their DR plans

⇒ When companies do test their systems, 65% of systems don’t pass

DR and backups do need care. They should be looked at regularly. Cloud-based backup providers like Arraya can spend the necessary time making sure the right data is being stored. In terms of testing DR plans, if it’s never or rarely tested, how confident will the folks responsible for executing it be in a real disaster situation? A cloud partner has the experience already on-staff to lead organizations through the recovery process.

Securing your data in the cloud

What about compliance and trust? Those issues are often linked. Organizations subject to strict industry regulations can be hesitant to hand over backups to an outsider for fear of incurring fines or penalties. However, if the cloud provider is compliant, then so is the organization. That’s where trust comes in. Trust is a critical component of any IT partnership, but never more so than in the case of DR and backups – and that goes beyond compliance and fines. It’s essential to know your data will be there when you need it.

At Arraya Solutions we work hard to build that bond with our customers. Our Protect service is an enterprise grade cloud-based backup solution that is also flexible enough to adjust to the unique compliance and regulatory needs presented by organizations from all industries. Protect is backed by our knowledgeable and personable Managed Services team. Our team is committed to building a close relationship with existing IT personnel. This allows our team to function as both an expert advisor and as a highly-skilled helping hand ready to assist 24/7 should the need arise.

If you’d like to learn more about the advantages of Protect, cloud-based backup from Arraya, please visit us at http://www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. Or, we can be reached through our Twitter account: @ArrayaSolutions. Be sure to follow us to stay in the know about all of our events, blog posts, and special offers.

January 13, 2016 by Arraya Insights

Think your organization isn’t big enough for blade servers? That may have been true once upon a time, but it isn’t the case anymore. In today’s landscape everything from small-to-mid-sized IT environments, remote offices, branch locations and more are able to benefit from the performance and power of blade servers – thanks to UCS Mini from Cisco. UCS Mini has been purpose built and optimized specifically to meet the needs of organizations of all shapes and sizes.

UCS Mini unites server, storage and networking capabilities into a lone, easy to manage and deploy tool. These deployments can range from two all the way up to 15 servers, making UCS Mini a truly scalable solution.

Why choose UCS Mini over a traditional, rack-mounted deployment? UCS Mini can:

deliver up to 29% in CapEx savings
use up to 34% less power
slash cabling by up to 80%

A closer look at UCS Mini

UCS Mini supports a variety of Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers, which can be mixed and matched in order to create a customized environment capable of meeting your organization’s unique needs. Supported servers include:

Cisco UCS B200 M4 Blade Server – This server is built on cutting-edge Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 technology. It’s capable of powering workloads such as IT and web infrastructure and a variety of mission-critical applications. UCS B200 M4 comes with up to 768 GB of memory, two hot-pluggable drives and a total of 40 Gbps in available bandwidth.
Cisco UCS B200 M3 Blade Server – Companies who don’t need the latest iteration of Intel’s Xeon processors but do need a server capable of handling grueling, changing workloads will want to take a close look at the UCS B200 M3. This server uses Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v2 technology and it comes with up to 768 GB of RAM, two hot-pluggable hard drives and 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.
Cisco UCS B420 M3 Blade Server – Organizations in need of enterprise-class performance and scalable virtualization and database workloads should consider UCS B420 M3. In addition, the full-width version of this server includes 1.5 terabytes (TB) of memory and up to 80-Gbps aggregate I/O bandwidth.

Every Cisco UCS Mini solution comes standard with a number of technologies, including Cisco UCS Manager. Most organizations strive to simplify the process of managing their technologies – and that’s exactly what Cisco UCS Manager does. It gives IT the ability to manage all of the software and hardware components of a UCS Mini solution from a single, locally-housed tool.

Also included standard is Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interface. This is what enables environments requiring smaller domains to leverage UCS architecture. This takes a unified approach to servers, networking and storage and embeds it within the Blade Server chassis.

Too big for UCS Mini? Not so fast

It’s not only SMBs that can benefit from a UCS Mini deployment. Larger organizations on the hunt for a unified computing solution capable of managing a smaller section of their IT environment or a certain segment on the periphery would also be wise to investigate UCS Mini more closely. It can help in situations where a company wants to outsource its server needs but doesn’t want that equipment housed on the same domain as servers belonging to another company. Or, it could be an instance where a larger enterprise seeks the comfort of having small failure domains. So once again it comes back to the idea that, no matter the size of your organization, UCS Mini could help you gain a tactical advantage over the competition.

If you’re interested in exploring this solution further, Arraya Solutions’ Cisco practice is ready to assist. Our team is skilled at working with customers to analyze their existing IT environments and find the best solutions to allow them to meet their improvement goals. They specialize in simplifying the complex, allowing customers to operate with greater speed and agility than ever before.

To start a conversation, please visit us at www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/, or reach out to us on Twitter @ArrayaSolutions. While you’re there, be sure to follow us so you can stay on top of all of our latest blog posts, industry insights and special offers.

January 11, 2016 by Arraya Insights

Here’s an IT prediction for 2016 and beyond: If it’s not already, Virtual SAN (VSAN) from VMware and hyperconverged infrastructure in general could soon become a major part of your data center. There was no crystal ball needed to devise that prediction. It’s based on the findings of multiple industry-leaders in the field of IT research and analysis.

Gartner believes by 2017 one-third of midmarket organizations will rely on VSAN to provide at least 30% of their total storage capacity
Forrester says 94% of companies are “interested, planning, or already implementing hyperconvergence in their data centers”
IDC predicts worldwide investments in hyperconverged systems to grow by 60% from 2015 to 2019, reaching a total of just shy of $4 billion

VSAN is an enterprise-grade storage solution designed to meet the needs of hyperconverged infrastructures. What are the benefits that companies are searching for when they make the move to VSAN? Many are motivated by a desire for:

Increased simplicity. VSAN can be managed directly from preexisting vSphere clients. This gives IT the ability to monitor performance, troubleshoot problems, and adjust to changing storage needs all via a single pane of glass solution.
Scalability. VSAN is built on a “grow-as-you-go” model, allowing it to develop along with organizational demand. Scaling is non-disruptive and can be accomplished by adding new hosts to a cluster or new drives to hosts.
Lower TCO. Organizations deploying VSAN can experience up to a 50% reduction in storage TCO. VSAN eliminates expensive overhead as well as time-consuming management. It also can lower OpEx by making disparate, siloed hardware solutions a thing of the past.
Better storage performance. VSAN operates uniquely within the hypervisor. Its position – right on the I/O path – allows it to outperform other virtual appliances and external devices. This level of performance makes it an ideal choice to handle virtual desktops and essential applications.

Special offer: Free VSAN assessment from Arraya

Interested in experiencing those benefits firsthand? Arraya’s 100% free VSAN assessment can help. Our VMware experts have decades of Enterprise Architecture expertise which they will use to guide your organization through the assessment. The end result will be a snapshot of your storage environment’s capabilities and what it would take to bring VSAN to your facility.

So what will this assessment involve? The Arraya team will deploy a small virtual appliance in your environment. Once installed, which only takes a matter of 1-2 hours, this appliance will run seamlessly in the background collecting data. The important thing to remember is no sensitive data will be touched during this process, which can last up two weeks. Once collected, the data is encrypted and transmitted to a secure VMware server. The Arraya team can access what’s been compiled and generate reports on it to show you exactly what it would look like to make the move to VSAN – and what improvements you’d see by making it.

As part of the assessment, Arraya’s team will also work with our industry-leading partners to price out any hardware upgrades necessitated by embracing VSAN. This will give you a better idea of the financial scope of the project, including licensing, hardware, software, etc.

To schedule your free assessment today or to begin a conversation about VSAN or any of IT solutions we provide, reach out to us at www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. We can also be contacted directly through our Twitter account, @ArrayaSolutions. Be sure to follow us to stay in the loop with all of our latest company news, upcoming events and special offers

January 7, 2016 by Arraya Insights

Patience is not a virtue today’s business world has in abundance – but that’s no longer an issue thanks to Cisco UCS Director. This solution replaces the time-consuming manual tasks needed to provision and de-provision data centers with quick and efficient automation. This ensures when new opportunities arise, the necessary data center capabilities will be there to allow the business to take advantage.

An “on demand” mindset has taken root in today’s highly-connected business climate. Customers and end users alike have been conditioned by the Internet to expect to have access to the data and services they need, when they need them.

That mindset set a very high bar for IT in terms of expectations, one that it was almost impossible to clear. Previously, provisioning compute, storage, network, etc. resources used to take weeks instead of minutes. Arduous manual processes were chiefly to blame for keeping IT from meeting those expectations. The good news is that is also precisely the area where Cisco UCS Director shines.

Conducting the data center with UCS Director

If the corporate data center is an orchestra, then UCS Director is the conductor. Without it, there’s only a collection of very valuable pieces, but they may not be synchronized and each one may need to be attended to individually. Cisco UCS Director unites those disparate hardware and software infrastructure components to ensure they’re pulling in the same direction, toward the same goal. It does this by transforming the components into programmable tasks. IT can then take these tasks and use them to build workflows that span a data center’s hypervisor, compute, network, and storage pieces.

The features and benefits of UCS Director include:

An out-of-the-box task library containing more than 1000 pre-built tasks, representing nearly 2400 days of development. Having them at hand right away allows IT to make infrastructure changes or upgrades within minutes, instead of weeks.
Increased insight and input into the performance of the data center through real-time monitoring, dynamic load-balancing, and optimum resource usage. As a result of this more open approach, IT can reduce CapEx expenses by ensuring only necessary resources are being expended and spot problems before they happen.
Support for a variety of industry-leading hypervisors, including those from VMware, Microsoft and Red Hat. This ensures the ability to create, manipulate and edit varied virtual machines, hosts, and networks from one spot.
Support for a full range of data center technologies, including those from HP, VMware, VCE, EMC and beyond. Modern data centers are often heterogeneous and so support must be diverse in order to meet their needs.
Improved resource management through support for resource pools or groups that span physical and virtual resources. This ensures that when IT pros go to make a change to a specific resource pool, other, unrelated pools won’t be impacted by the move.

Ensuring full value from Cisco UCS Director

As patience levels have dropped, data volumes have been rising steadily and so have the demands placed on the IT team. These trends show no signs of reversing in the coming years, making now the perfect time to investigate the automation provided by solutions such as Cisco UCS Director.

Still have questions? Arraya Solutions’ Cisco Practice can provide the answers. Our team has decades of real world experience working with game-changing Cisco solutions. Not only can our experts help identify the right solution to meet organizational needs, but they can provide continued support by helping deploy and optimize it as well.

To get the conversation started with our team, please visit www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. Or, we can be reached directly via our Twitter account, @ArrayaSolutions. While there, be sure to follow us. That guarantees access to all of our latest company news, event notices, blog posts, and special offers.

January 5, 2016 by Arraya Insights

Years ago, I worked for a small company in Allentown, PA. It was my first IT Manager role and my responsibilities were all-encompassing. Unlike previous jobs which let me focus on Microsoft technologies, I suddenly had to support everything from servers to desktops, email and applications, data centers, networks and voice. It was my very first foray into voice. Most IT engineers raised on Microsoft had never really had to support voice before. It was a completely foreign concept to me, but thanks to some handwritten instructions from my predecessor, I got through it.

I couldn’t tell you what the PBX system was. This was about 10 years ago and, at that time, the system itself was around 10 years old. Chances are, the system is still up and running today. Small companies tend to ignore systems that just run. Why invest in replacing something that works? Imagine though if your voice system went offline. It might take a while to repair and be costly to replace.

Since Microsoft Ignite in May, those following Microsoft have waited for the public availability of Enterprise Voice in Office 365. On December 1st, Microsoft announced the Office 365 E5 SKU. This new license includes a number of new features, but potentially the most transformative for businesses (and Microsoft IT folks) is the addition of Enterprise Voice.

There are three new features in Skype for Business that are getting a lot of attention as a result.

Cloud PBX – Extend or replace your existing on-premises IP-PBX system with a Cloud PBX. Users can leverage common end-user call management features on IP Phones, mobile devices and other rich clients. Best of all, this can work with your current PSTN calling service under existing carrier contracts or you can purchase an add-on calling plan right from Microsoft.
PSTN Conferencing in Office 365 – With Dial-in conferencing, organizers can easily schedule meetings with an audio bridge that can be joined from any phone. Organizers can also invite others on the fly through their phone number using Dial-out conferencing.
PSTN Calling – Instead of contracting with a traditional telephony carrier and using an on-premises IP-PBX, you can purchase PSTN Calling directly from Microsoft with this add-on. You can even keep your existing numbers. Paired with a Cloud PBX, you get a complete enterprise level telephony experience for users. It is so easy, there are 5 steps (some of which can be automated with PowerShell).

At this point, you might be asking yourself What does Microsoft know about voice? As it turns out, quite a lot. Back in 2011, Microsoft bought Skype. Since then, Skype has become the most widely used platform for international calling. Microsoft has also supported Enterprise Voice with Lync Server for a few years. Now, they are finally entering the Enterprise Voice space in the cloud, making it a per user commodity like a mailbox.

There are a couple of ways to manifest savings with Office 365 E5 and Enterprise Voice. You can standardize on a PBX platform across your different offices and locations with ease. Administrative costs will go down through provisioning/de-provisioning efficiencies in one centralized console. You can scale up or down instantly without over-committing hardware and, best of all, you don’t need to update or purchase costly hardware.

With expensive telco contracts and a lack of an established refresh cycle across the industry for voice, those with Office 365 are now ahead of the game. Office 365 E5 also eases the burden on small to medium sized businesses by giving them a great way to get Enterprise Voice features without a large entry cost.

There are other great features around collaboration and security in the Office E5 suite. In the new year, why not take this chance to upgrade your voice platform to something new?

December 22, 2015 by Arraya Insights

Increased agility is a popular target for many businesses and their IT teams. They dream of adjusting, almost on-the-fly, to changing business needs by being able to manage and deploy cutting-edge apps when needed. While the goal is clear, that’s rarely the case for the path leading to that goal.

One of the best methods for increasing agility is automation. Removing time-consuming manual processes wherever you can is essential for increasing the business’ ability to react quickly and efficiently. For all the upsides, too much automation too quickly can also lead to problems. Employees may push back against the new methods if they’re unsure of the motivations behind using them. In this way, by solving one problem, a new one has been created.

This is why it’s essential to have an automation solution capable of growing with you. Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite is that type of solution. It can be adopted in small pieces, at a pace that is comfortable for IT and the business as a whole. This means less resistance to new processes as everyone has more time to get used to them and see the benefits for themselves.

Take a closer look at Cisco ONE

So what is Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite exactly? Here’s a look at the solutions it contains and what each one brings to your business:

Prime Service Catalog – IT used to be slowed down by having to manually process user requests which it received in a number of different ways, e.g., over the phone, via email, etc. Cisco Prime Service Catalog gives users a modern, storefront-styled portal from which to order standardized IT services. Also, in order to ensure corporate governance requirements continue to be met, the Prime Service Catalog provides policy-based controls and approvals and user entitlement and role-based access control among other features.
Intercloud Fabric for Business – It’s no secret that in recent year’s IT’s control of business technology has been undermined by so-called shadow IT. Folks believe there are easier, more effective alternatives outside of the purview of IT and they go in search of them on their own. Intercloud Fabric for Business can reduce these temptations by allowing the business to build its own, highly-secure premium hybrid clouds. That can put IT back in the driver’s seat of enterprise technology.
UCS Director – The internet has conditioned consumers to expect to get something at the moment of need – and these expectations have carried into their work lives. It’s when they have to wait that users start looking around for other options. UCS Director addresses these issues by replacing slow, manual data center provisioning and de-provisioning with swift automation. Instead of taking weeks, with UCS these processes can clock in at mere minutes.
Virtual Application Container Services – Rising compute, storage and network needs have increased interest in private cloud-housed infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings. In order to address that interest, data centers are being rapidly virtualized. Virtual Application Container Services provides preconfigured and integrated virtual services as well as switching and workflow automation tools. These allow it to streamline policy definitions and to make integration and deployment that much easier.

Learn what Cisco ONE can do for you

Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite offers the easy installation, automation and out-of-the-box functionality needed to get your new clouds up and running as soon as possible. This increased velocity will continue to be felt post-deployment as companies are more easily able to enter new markets, spin up new features and abilities and deliver faster, better service to customers – both internal and external.

Ready to learn more about Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite? Reach out to us at www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us. From there you’ll be put in touch with one of our Account Executives and a member of our team of Cisco experts. Together they can answer any questions you might have. Then they will work with you to learn more about your environment and goals.

Also, we can be reached through our Twitter account, @ArrayaSolutions. Be sure to follow us so you won’t miss any of our latest blogs, company news or special offers.

December 21, 2015 by Arraya Insights

Ed Bott published an article called “Who’s still using Internet Explorer? And why won’t they upgrade?” I think he skims the surface of the first question, but the second appears to be rhetorical. In case you didn’t hear, all versions of Internet Explorer below 11 will be unsupported starting January 2016. Microsoft announced this two years ago, but it still might come as a surprise to some customers. Also come January, Office 365 users can expect a noticeably “diminished experience” should they continue to utilize IE 8 and 9, per a more recent Microsoft announcement. The message is clear: If you aren’t thinking about Windows 10, now is a good time!

Let’s take a look at Ed’s stats:

Net Market Share says Microsoft browsers account for 50.7% of all worldwide visits
Between 200 million to 800 million Windows PC users are still using Microsoft browsers
Internet Explorer 11 accounts for an average of over 50% of most of Microsoft browsers, with IE 10, 9 and 8 all coming in at less than 15% on average

Now, most versions of IE are tied to the OS, but the problem is none of these stats are broken down by consumer and business. This is really where things differ.

Consumers have more flexibility to upgrade their own desktops at their leisure because most aren’t worried about website compatibility. If they want the latest OS or hardware, they will either use the default browser or load up something else. Businesses are always developing for the latest platforms because they are following consumer innovation. This is how they can keep traffic coming to their websites.

Back when Windows Server 2000 was released, a lot of companies hired developers to run their own Line-of-Business (LOB) applications. This was before massive ERP systems had a strong foothold. When Windows Server 2003 came out, the applications were moved over, but somewhere between then and the next release of Windows Server, the developers were let go and the business was left with a barely supported LOB application running on an unsupported OS.

This happens more than you might think.

When you look at the history, it becomes apparent why so many legacy IE users are out there. Businesses, not consumers, are stuck with legacy software to back legacy applications that work great, but are ultimately unsupported. If you think IE is bad, think about all the specific versions of Java there are out there. Coming from an Enterprise, I can tell you that sometimes it isn’t only the browser holding upgrades back, but Java as well (and of course, the lack of developers).

Here is where we find ourselves. It’s a few months after the Windows 10 release and customers are starting to realize the old model of “good enough” support is no longer valid. How can you possibly innovate when you aren’t leveraging the latest technologies?

Change is certainly scary, but in the case of legacy IE, there are only benefits. The short term benefits are supportability and security. By moving to the latest IE or Windows 10, you are ensured to be up to date against malicious activity. This doesn’t solve the long term problem though – those legacy apps.

Here’s where the IE discussion becomes a modernization discussion. Take a look at your legacy, unsupported applications and ask yourself – “What would I do if that went away?” Now remember that you are looking at a (likely) unsupported application running on an unsupported operating system. Even if you have storage replication and a great DR plan in place, if anything goes wrong, you are out of luck.

Arraya can help you take a look at your workloads and give you recommendations on what to do next through an offering called Data Center Day. You bring your data center inventory in and we bring our knowledge experts to show you the latest technology and how you can get innovating again. Interested in scheduling a Data Center Day? Reach out to us at http://www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/ to set yours up today.